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User blog:Unin/MLOLTL Update: Still no news
Been a while since I posted a playable update. regrettably today is no different. I did however want to clarify the current plan. I like updating as things roll of the line, but have found that working from scene to scene leaves each scene rather disjointed and difficult to transition from. This is fine for chapter endings, and perhaps even next-day transitions, but there are several scenes where thoughts and themes are carried over from location to location, that I feel I've dropped the ball on by handling them weeks apart. Its hard to describe, but its a juxtaposition that I notice as a director of sorts, and it leaves me uncomfortable with the end product. In response to this, I've been experimenting with ch3, producing it step-wise rather than scene-wise. To be honest, it's tedious with little creative satisfaction to reward any progress attained until the final steps, but I'm seeing an improvement in quality, so I may stick with it. Originally, especially throughout chapter 1, I was literally handling production 1 line at a time. The results were much more immediately tangible, but required way to much revising to maintain flow and pace. Now I'm working a seven step process detailed below: * Cleaning - Processing the original fanfic. Spellchecking, grammar checking, correcting misused idioms (sorry PX, but it looks like you write a lot of expressions "by ear"). This also includes any editing required to maintain continuity internally and with the ML universe canon. Dialogue – Converting the prose to screenplay. I hesitate to call this scripting, as its still prior to any actual coding, though it is scripting in the cinema sense. Edited text is divided into two categories: dialogue and actions. Dialogue is easy to identify and manage, ren'py code only requires a character name to associate it with who's speaking: unin "「Manually adding these quote brackets for asthetic purposes is still a bitch though.」" A bigger issue is what's left over after parsing dialogue. Like most VNs, MLA is all written first person present tense, primarily from Shirogane's perspective. Rather than any sort of narration, Every event is either directly observed, obliquely narrated by other characters' references, or reacted to by Shirogane's internal monologue. With the exception of flashbacks and some omniscient cutscenes, it's all present tense. PX on the other hand is all over the place – past tense, narrated third person, even hoping perspectives to other characters. Most of this requires rewriting to fit the VN 1st-person-present dynamic. Sometimes more substantial than others. For example: **''"Worth a shot" I answered looking a bit unsure. I thought the farthest this shooting range had was the 850 meter target, but now there was another one even farther. I guess this place was meant to train a man farther than his fullest extent. I slowly got on my stomach and kept my rifle steady. Tama didn't even use a scope to hit her target so I didn't need one either. But the targets we have are a big difference. "I should be able to hit it from here"'' "Takeru san, why don't you use my rifle instead?" Tama offered which I politely declined. "Nah that's alright. On the field, this little boy will be the only thing I can rely on. I can't have your rifle all the time" I adjusted my sights and aimed at the dark spot that was supposedly my target. "I'll only need one shot for this" "Oooh… he's so confident~~" "Don't you mean overconfident?" Class rep corrected her which made me pop a vein. Even in this world she was annoying. Bang! My shot went off without a hitch but I still couldn't tell if it hit or not. I quickly grabbed my binoculars and zoomed in from a distance. I saw my target… it was small… really small but I did hit it. Though it wasn't a complete bulls-eye I was pretty close to the center at least. Tama can probably do that shot with her eyes closed. I lifted my gun to my shoulder with a proud face before turning to my squad who all had their own amazed expression. "That's amazing Takeru san!" Tama applauded with a loud voice. "You hit it!" Becomes: (# indicates text is commented out for reference) takeru "「''Worth a shot...'」'"'' #I answered looking a bit unsure. "I thought the farthest this shooting range had was the 850 meter target, but now there was another one even farther." "I guess this place was meant to train a man farther than his fullest extent..." #zoom far target. Not cg target hole but actual zoom (no scope) "I better get on my stomach to keep my rifle steady." "Tama didn't even use a scope to hit her target so I don't need one either. But the targets we have are a big difference." takeru "「''I should be able to hit it from here.'」'"'' tama "「''Takeru san, why don't you use my rifle instead?'」'"'' #Tama offered which I politely declined. takeru "「''Nah that's alright. On the field, this little guy will be the only thing I can rely on. I can't have your rifle all the time.'」'"'' #pan slightly around target takeru "「''I'll only need one shot for this.'」'"'' tama "「''Oooh... he's so confident~~'」'"'' chizuru "「''Don't you mean overconfident?'」'"'' "Class Rep's corrections are making me pop a vein. Even in this world she's annoying." #heart beat "Adjust my sights a bit... guess that dark spot is supposed to be my target." #heart beat "..." #loud single shot "Bang!" "My shot went off without a hitch but I still can't tell if it hit or not without binoculars." #I quickly grabbed my binoculars and zoomed in from a distance. #zoom cg target 1 hole not bullseye "It's small... really small, but I did hit it. Though it wasn't a complete bulls-eye I was pretty close to the center at least." "Tama can probably do that shot with her eyes closed." #I lifted my gun to my shoulder with a proud face before turning to my squad who all had their own amazed expression. -Strike this.-'' ''"Huh?! Somebody grabbed my binoculars from my eyes." #transition with vshake tama "「''That's amazing Takeru san!'」'"'' # turn to tama, chizuru, and kei #Tama applauded with a loud voice. tama "「''You hit it!'」'"'' kei "「''+3.'」'" # Kei is in the scene, but doesn't have any lines for an awkward period of time.'' "Aren't those my binoculars?" Some will stay as is, for example jumping to Marimo's perspective is simply too tempting to pass up at times. * Scene (Background) – This is the first visual step of establishing scenes. Beyond animating some backgrounds (zooming, panning, transitioning, making room for characters), this is one of the simpler steps. Pick a background for the scene and move on. * Character bodies – Character bodies are more of a pain than I anticipated. Each main girl has between 5 to 8 sprite perspectives, with each perspective having up to a dozen poses... and then there's the 8 different uniforms per sprite set. (civies, school, training blues, training blues with jacket, parade, eishi training suit, eishi grad suit. Oh, and the doubles of all of these with eishi wings pinned after commissioning) Each body needs to be scales, positioned, and often animated. Layering becomes an issue at this point. * Character faces – The nice thing about faces is that they have the same dimensions as their character bodies, so they can be overlayed using the same positioning coding, rather than having to try and pixel match them. Sometimes it takes several attempts of swapping in different faces to find the write expression. For a limited set, they are surprisingly versatile when it comes to range of emotion. * SFX and music – I tend to leave this to the end anyway, predominantly because it requires go back into MLU/MLA and manually capturing Sounds. Sometimes music gets precoded early just to set the mode while picking faces, etc. * Testing - Lastly comes hours of testing, trying to break it, checking timing, and even reading it out-loud to see if it “sounds” right. So, what the hell is taking so long? tl;dr - I'm trying to knock out ch3 all at once. Category:Blog posts